Word: sebastien
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...last year, largely because it runs for somewhat more than four hours, and distributors naturally tend to be wary. It is, moreover, a tense, slowly-paced film, taking its rhythm from scenes of a company of actors rehearsing a modern production of Racine's Andromaque under the direction of Sebastien (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) interwoven with scenes of Sebastien's deteriorating marriage to the actress Claire (Bulle Ogier). But the pace arises naturally out of a profound conception and full characters, and the intensity of those four hours is worth the time...
...film was scripted only in outline and fully developed during the shooting by the cooperation of Rivette and his actors. The company actually carried out the series of rehearsals from which the included footage was taken, and Sebastien's articulate direction and consultation with the cast is quite genuine. The production aims at naturalness and reserve, playing down, for example, the effect of the Alexandrine verse to let it emerge of its own accord...
When Claire, in the opening minutes of the film, quits her role as Andromaque in frustration, Sebastien calls in his old girlfriend Marta and attempts to continue without a break. But this split runs the length of the film: the life of the theater on one side and private life at home on the other become two separate strands of action, linked by common characters, mutually reflecting each other, and occasionally crossing over each other in a rehearsal at Sebastien's flat or Claire's visit to watch her husband at work. As the film goes on, both strands begin...
...Sebastien has agreed to let a television film crew shoot the rehearsals, and the 16 mm footage which they take is intercut with that of the conventional cameras. The effect is to give a documentary depth to the characters, seen now being followed around the stage by the television people, now in grainy images shot by the crew. Actors lounge off stage while waiting to go on, drink Cokes over reading sessions, move from tension to fatigue. The two views together provide a convincing if tiring casualness...
Revealing any more of the plot would be unethical; but perhaps this preview will encourage you to see I'he Sleeping Car Murder,which is an intelligent and exciting first film by a 34-year-old French director named Costa Gavras. Using an ingenious mystery by Sebastien Japrisot, who resembles Simenon but is fonder than he of elaborate puzzles, Gavras wrote an adaptation that is both thoroughly cinematic and faithful to the spirit of the book...